Reviewing: My Process
Most book blogs wouldn't be complete without a review or two - or at the very least that seems to be the content many of us lean toward. We all love to gush and rave about our favorites through five star reviews while issuing warnings for those dreaded one star reads we all inevitably come across. To say I've done my fair share of reviews would be an understatement.
With the diversity of the bookish community, we all work a little differently in how we create our reviews. Everyone has their own way of doing things, as is true with anything. I've never met a book blogger who did their reviews exactly the same as I or others I know do. We all have a tried and true routine we follow to write our reviews. In this post I'll be talking about mine.
Reading The Book:
This one may seem fairly self-explanatory but the first step is choosing a book to read and review. My personal go-tos are usually romance, fantasy, and mystery. They are probably the genres that get the most attention on my book blog, GoddessofBooks, just because they are my favorite genres that I feel confident reviewing. In contrast, I rarely review horror or sci-fi because I don't feel like I have enough experience with them and they aren't my favorite genres anyways.
Reading a book for my blog is very different each time. Sometimes I can knock a book out in a night and other times it will take me over a week. I just am one of those bookworms who go through starts and stops in their reading habits. I try to evenly distribute my reads between the physical copies, ebooks, and arcs I have lying around so I don't get overwhelmed but that admittedly doesn't always happen.
Deciding and Taking Notes
I tend to go into a book knowing whether I'll be doing a long form or mini review. Deciding ahead of time allows me to know how much effort I need to put into my notes and attention to detail because not all reviews are equal on my blog. I have different styles for each version that will be dependent on the notes I take.
If you've followed my blog, you'll know fantasy and mystery are typically worthy of a long form review. Romance, on the other hand, often results in a mini review for my What I've Been Reading series. I think this is because when I go into fantasy and mystery I'm ready for hardcore critical thinking but the lighter romances I choose are just meant to turn my brain off. I do, however, fully review a romance novel when it's an ARC.
Writing My Review
Now we get down to the nitty-gritty. Reviews are probably my favorite type of post to write for my blog. After I've decided on the book I'll read, the type of review I'll write, and taken notes, it's time to start the actual writing process. This part is usually a montage of me flipping through the book to try to remember specific names and places along with pouring over all the notes I have on my iPhone.
Often, I have everything I need for a review in my notes. I rarely have to add too much to them in terms of observations and analysis. Writing a review for me is primarily about rewording what I've already put in my notes to make it into something tangible that flows. I also have to decide on a star rating which I inevitably agonize over for way too long.
Publishing My Post
In case you weren't aware, I use Wix for my website and blog. I've found it to be the right platform for me with my premium plan. It has a really nice interface for drafting and publishing blog posts. Usually I schedule them every day even if I only finished writing it the morning I will post it. It keeps me on track and let's me consistently post at the same time without fear of forgetting, because I'm a little scatterbrained generally.
After I've got my post up, I do a quick look through of it on my live website to make sure nothing got lost in translation between the draft and published version. Assuming that is okay, I'll start to work on sharing my blog post on my socials such as Instagram, Twitter, Goodreads, and Pinterest. I put together a little few sentence hook for the platforms like Instagram and Twitter, copy my review to Goodreads, and work on a Pinterest graphic.
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